Harvest Monday - February 19th 2018

For this week's Harvest Monday, I got an overlarge, but still tender Batavia Blush lettuce. Also a rainbow stock, which is a cheat to include, but I am feeling extraordinarily vain about it.

I cannot remember what variety this is. Mom-care-package-mystery-variety. 

The only Vogerlsalat I got this winter because of the heat / bad planning. I made a vinaigrette and ate it with my fingers while standing over the sink. I know this green has a million names, but I think the most appropriate is definitely Vogerlsalat. Next fall I'm going to grow these in containers instead of raised beds so I can start them earlier, but still find ways to protect them from the heat.

Fordhook chard, Batavia broccoli, miracles.

I only had two chard plants this winter because the f$@&#^* raccoons kept pulling my many many chard seedlings out and dropping them an inch from where I'd planted them. 

A largish bunch of Rapini that was saved by a week or so of cooling temperatures and some mikado turnips - both Renee's seeds.

One more because I'm smitten.

Harvest Monday - February 12, 2018

Because I am a beginner gardener in an urban desert it seems unlikely that I'll participate in Harvest Monday more than once in a while. But it turns out I couldn't be trusted with instagram on my phone, so here we are!

I noticed the front yard radishes had made a break for it, so I went ahead and cleared out everything but the garlic. These raised beds I put in in August aren't getting enough light to produce anything substantial anyway and they'll need to be moved.

Sowed August 21st in 100 degree heat. 

Mostly Scarlet Nantes - a variety I'm over the moon for. They seem determined to live which is necessary in my garden. I also got a few purple carrots. I think these are Renee's Purple Sun, but who knows. These were extraordinarily tasty and I'm sorry I didn't get more of them. 

I also cut a head of Renee's Blush Batavians lettuce, which has had truly shocking bolt resistance despite a few 85 degree days. Especially compared to my Joker lettuce, which bolted immediately and my Red Sails lettuce which is looking at me sideways. Everything went into a "things I have around" chicken Cesar salad.

This house has ugly brown counters, an ugly brown dining room table, and a roommate who has recently taken up pottery so now we also eat off of ugly 10 pound brown slabs.

I pulled out an old tomato plant that bit the dust and it confirmed my ugly suspicion that I have nematodes.

They all also have bad spider mites, which seem indifferent to my various treatments. I've decided to recalibrate my thinking from "Why do I never get tomatoes?" to "Each tomato is a miracle." 

 

Mites. Miracles.

 I immediately ordered a 50lb bag of Neptune's Harvest with chitin and something called "Saponins of Quillaja Saponaria" which cannot be shipped to half the states in the union, but can somehow be shipped to California. I also stopped by OSH for a dozen packets of french marigold seeds which threw by the handful everywhere there was space. I'll turn it in like a cover crop when things need to go into the ground. Gardening is so relaxing!